4.6 billion years of the story of life on Earth, in 52,000 words. Brief, brilliant and entirely gripping.

In ?Humans Are Doomed To Go Extinct', an article in Scientific American published in November 2021, veteran Nature editor Dr Henry Gee predicted that Homo sapiens is on a rapid one-way ride to extinction. The article provoked media coverage and comment around the world. In The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, Gee expands the themes of his much-discussed article to book length, charting both the rise as well as the fall of humans.

After 10,000 years of exponential growth, the rat...